Dinner last night

[serenecooking]

The day before yesterday, I made rotini with a jar of Seeds of Change
organic kalamata-and-balsamic pasta sauce, found for $1.49 at the local
Grocery Outlet (I usually make my own sauce, but from time to time I
buy a jar of interesting-looking sauce if it's cheaper than it would
cost me to make). Well, half a jar. It was wayyyyy too sweet for us,
so yesterday I tried to do something with the other half that would tone
down the sweetness. I simmered it with garlic, black olives, basil,
red peppers, and maybe some other stuff. Drained spaghetti over some
fresh chopped spinach, and had it with the sauce over it.

Still too sweet. Darn. Not buying that brand again, even at that price.

I could post pics, but why? Pretty doesn't equal tasty. :-(

Comments

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I truly don't understand why jarred pasta sauces are so sweet. I guess the market research has shown that American palates prefer sweeter pasta sauces, but some of them are downright syrupy. The trouble is that the sweetness doesn't come from the tomatoes or nicely sauteed oniions, but from sugar or corn syrup, and that sweetness is just cloying.

If I want to cut the sweetness, I usually add a can of tomatoes, either diced or crushed.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

You don't find canned tomatoes to be sweet themselves? I'll try that next time. It wasn't a huge deal, and I normally don't mind the sweetness of most jarred sauce (I don't get WHY they would do it, but it's usally within my tolerance level), but this was way over the top. I should've just tossed the second half of the jar, but I thought I'd get all creative.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

You don't find canned tomatoes to be sweet themselves?

Not at all. But I always make sure they're canned without any sweetener. I especially like Muir Glen's products. I think properly canned tomatoes are one of the most successful canned products in the world.

My favorite pasta sauce consists of sauteeing a chopped yellow onion, a chopped red bell pepper and a couple of cloves of minced garlic in a bit of olive oil (if you're going fat free, you can steam saute), then adding a can of whole tomatoes, broken up, and a can of ground tomatoes, some chopped fresh oregano, shredded fresh basil, chopped Italian parsley, a bay leaf, a bit of salt and a splash of good red wine. Let it simmer for 30 minutes or so. Sometimes I add olives, a lot of the time I add sliced fresh mushrooms. It's also a good sauce in which to toss in a bit of broccoli or squash or celery or green beans or asparagus or a bit of all of that.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

You cook a lot like I do. :-)

(I don't tend to put oregano or bay leaves into pasta sauce, but I'm gonna try it next time.)

And sugar in canned tomatoes? HERESY, say I.